CSW64 Parallel Event (Cancelled due to COVID-19)
Beijing + CEDAW: South-North Dialogue on WHR accountability and implementation
Date: 13 March
Time: 12:30 PM – 2 PM
Venue: Church Center for the United Nations
Room: Tenth Floor
Description:
CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action together lay out a road map and legal framework for women’s rights and an intersectional approach to gender equality. But to many advocates at the domestic level, these instruments remain aspirational, remote and inscrutable. This parallel event will explore the power of these frameworks and WHR mechanisms for making these rights part of accountability mechanisms in the areas of immigration processes, national equality campaigns, legal reform and movement building in several country contexts. The event will have practical, concrete and inspiring elements for those interested in how to make international standards real in their contexts.
Speakers and Topics:
Moderator: Angela Lytle, Women’s Human Rights Education Institute
Alda Facio, UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls: CEDAW as a legal, normative and visionary framework (and what it adds to Beijing+)
Terry Ince, CEDAW Committee of Trinidad & Tobago: CEDAW as a rallying tool for women’s movements
Dr. Pam Palmater, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action: Indigenous women and girls and their allies use of CEDAW in the struggle to obtain a National Inquiry and National Action Plan on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada
Shivangi Misra, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action: CEDAW monitoring, follow-up and NGO engagement
Abigail Edem Hunu, Women in Law and Development in Africa – Ghana: Empowering women and girls in Ghana: the CEDAW Approach
Deepa Mattoo, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, Toronto: International human rights and migrant women’s experience
(see full presenter bios below)
Presenter Bios:
Deepa Mattoo is the Executive Director of the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic. As the Executive Director of the Clinic Ms. Mattoo brings 20 years of legal advocacy, social justice reform, direct human rights service provision and public education experience to the position. She an expert on issues related to access to justice for women and children’s rights, income security, immigration and poverty law. Bringing a deeply intersectional approach to women’s rights and gender equality issues, Ms. Mattoo takes the daily struggles for individual rights and reveals the institutional failures that impede women’s right to justice and a life free from violence.
Terry Ince is a social entrepreneur and rights advocate who has worked extensively with for-profit and non-governmental organizations in developed and developing countries and underserved communities. She is Convener and founder of the CEDAW Committee of Trinidad and Tobago (CCoTT), a non-governmental organization committed to stakeholder advocacy for the implementation of the CEDAW Convention and its mandates, through collaboration, education, development, advocacy, and knowledge sharing. Terry contributes to women’s economic and political empowerment nationally, regionally and globally. She is a member and Director on the Board of African Views Organization and acts as an election monitor in a range of African states.
Alda Facio is a Special Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women and girls (Human Rights Council) and Director of the Fundacion Justicia y Genero of Costa Rica. She was co-founder of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Alda has carried out hundreds of trainings for judges, police, and judicial officials throughout Latin America, as well as for women’s organizations and civil society throughout the world. She has a decades-long history of supporting and shaping the international women’s human rights movement. She shares her experience and skills as advisor to numerous women’s initiatives, including JASS (Just Associates) and co-founded the Women’s Human Rights Education Institute.
Shivangi Misra is an Indian human rights lawyer focused on working towards ending discrimination against women and creating a world of equal opportunity for all. She currently works as the policy and projects manager at the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA) in Ottawa, ON. She leads the project on implementing international women’s rights across Canada and State accountability to international obligations. She previously worked with Senior Advocate Indira Jaising in India creating online platforms for human rights discourse and worked on advocacy projects against gender-based discrimination. She also serves as an advisory board member to the Berkeley Centre for Anti-discrimination and Equality Law and the End FGM/C Canada Network.
Dr. Pam Palmater is a Mi’kmaw lawyer, professor, author, and social justice activist from Eel River Bar First Nation in New Brunswick. Pamela, FAFIA and Canada Without Poverty, in partnership, had standing as a party at the National Inquiry on MMIWG. She currently holds the position of full Professor and Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University. A practicing lawyer for 20 years, Pam has been volunteering and working in First Nation issues for over 25 years on a wide range of issues, Aboriginal and treaty rights, and legislation impacting First Nations. She is frequently called as a legal expert before Parliamentary and United Nations committees dealing with laws and policies impacting Indigenous peoples. Her current research focuses on police racism, abuse and sexualized violence against Indigenous women and girls and its contribution to the crisis of murdered, missing, traded, and exploited Indigenous women and girls.
Abigail Edem Hunu is a Ghanaian feminist who has spent almost a decade advocating for an end to sexual and gender based violence and discrimination against women and girls. She builds the agency of women and girls at risk of gender-based violence to claim and exercise their rights to end same. She also engages men and boys to develop positive masculinities and respect for the rights of women and girls. Abigail trains people on gender issues and legal instruments that encourages a shift in mindsets and modification of practices that deny women and girls their rights. Ms. Hunu has background in Law, Communication Studies and Teaching. Additionally, she has also trained with the prestigious Women’s Human Rights Institute at the University of Toronto. Ms. Abigail Edem Hunu is a Human Rights Project Ambassador at Youth for Human Rights Africa, a Head of State Award winner and the founder of Centre for Gender Justice.
Angela Lytle is the Executive Director of the Women’s Human Rights Education Institute. She is a women’s human rights defender and educator with extensive experience teaching, facilitating workshops and capacity building programs in international settings. Under her leadership, the WHRI expanded to offer international programs, online learning and consultancy, new partnerships, and has enhanced WHRI’s impact in the areas of advocacy and strategic knowledge mobilization. Angela has worked extensively with the UN human rights system, having served as a resource person with IWRAW-APs “Global to Local” program for NGO representatives at the CEDAW Committee and as researcher and contributor to the work of the UN Working Group on discrimination against women. Angela lived in South Korea where she engaged in educational and activist work with the Korean Women’s Associations United, and organizations supporting survivors of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery, including supporting UN interventions.